Obama aims to open more areas to drilling

Obama looking to open more areas to offshore drilling

JENNIFER A. DLOUHY, Washington Bureau |
March 31, 2010

Update: In a reversal of a long-standing ban on most offshore drilling, President Barack Obama is allowing oil drilling off Virginia's shorelines and considering it for a large chunk of the Atlantic seaboard. At the same time, he's rejecting some new drilling sites that had been planned in Alaska, the Associated Press reported today..

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama today is set to unveil a broad blueprint for oil and natural gas drilling along the nation's coastlines that would pave the way for energy companies to explore previously untouched Atlantic waters and possibly new areas of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico.

The long-awaited plan — which Obama is expected to detail during a speech in Maryland — represents an attempted compromise among pro-drilling lawmakers, the energy industry and environmentalists that make up the president's political base.

But it is unlikely to win strong support from the fiercest drilling advocates in Congress and the energy industry, who have accused the administration of slow-walking conventional oil and gas production. They are expected to oppose many of the administration's decisions — including the cancellation of planned lease sales in Alaska and potentially years-long waits before new drilling along the East Coast.

Vince Haley, vice president for policy at the conservative group American Solutions, said today's announcement “is likely to be an attempt by Obama to seduce the public (into) believing that he will do something in the future on offshore drilling,” but amounts to little more than window-dressing.

Administration officials said the blueprint would keep drilling out of Alaska's Bristol Bay, home to sockeye salmon and endangered whales. And it was expected that Pacific waters along California, Oregon and Washington also would be off-limits.

Under revised Interior plan, four pending lease sales in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska would be canceled to allow scientific studies and environmental research before any drilling decisions. A previously scheduled lease sale in Alaska's Cook Inlet would still go forward.

A lure for Republicans

The administration also is outlining plans for seismic studies along south- and mid-Atlantic states that could help pinpoint hidden pockets of oil and gas — the first step to allowing new drilling along the East Coast. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has argued that seismic research — which would be done only after it clears environmental reviews — is badly needed to update decades-old geologic data before new drilling in the region.

Obama has repeatedly touted the possibility of expanding offshore drilling this year as part of sweeping energy legislation to promote renewable power and combat global warming. The administration's drilling blueprint could add the White House's imprimatur to Senate negotiations on expanding offshore drilling as part of a climate change bill that the chamber is expected to take up this spring.

Climate change negotiators hope to use the idea of expanded drilling — along with new incentives for nuclear power — as a potent lure for Republicans who have been critical of proposed new caps on greenhouse gas emissions.

One major flashpoint in the negotiations has been whether to share drilling revenue with states and to allow states to opt in or out of drilling along their coastlines.

It was unclear late Tuesday whether Obama endorses revenue-sharing for states.

“It appears the Northern Atlantic and entire Pacific Coast will now be under a de facto ban” for drilling, said Patrick Creighton, a spokesman for the Institute for Energy Research, an industry-funded group. Even if drilling is ultimately allowed in part of the Atlantic, Creighton said, revenue sharing is an essential incentive for states.

The administration's plans could meet resistance from at least 10 Senate Democrats representing coastal and Great Lakes states who last week raised concerns about “unfettered access to oil and gas drilling” that could jeopardize fishing, tourism and military exercises.

The Interior Department retooled the current schedule of offshore leases governing 2007 through 2012 after a federal appeals court last April ruled that the second Bush administration had not done a sufficient environmental review of expanded drilling off the Alaskan coast.

Salazar had said he was readying a second blueprint for leasing from July 1, 2012 until 2017 — a decision that meant scrapping a Bush-era plan that would have OK'd leases on Pacific and Atlantic waters where no drilling has been allowed for decades.

Opening Eastern Gulf

The administration also plans to sell drilling leases in 2.9 million acres off the coast of Virginia — though it was unclear whether that sale would happen in November 2011, as originally planned by the Bush administration.

And the president is expected to endorse opening up more of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico for drilling — including areas at least 125 miles off the Florida Coast.

Congress and then-President George W. Bush both moved to expand offshore drilling in 2008.

First, Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling. Congress later allowed the expiration of a 26-year moratorium on oil and gas exploration over 85 percent of the outer continental shelf.